i want to now recognize the chairman of the higher education and workforce committee mr. kline for five minutes. >> thank you madam chair into the witnesses for being here. you are quite excellent. how does your idea looking at your testimony would require students to take the azt or the sat and meet the threshold scores based on the gpa. i listened to the testimony and you talk about how you have a greater success rate if they have had a high school education and so forth. i do not understand how this would work for the millions of what we are still calling nontraditional students, people going back to the community

college or for-profit school or something like that to get a particular skill. .. to find an alternative way to achieve standards. for example, after one semester of satisfactory academic proprogress in a community

college they become reeligible even if not under rigorous high school standards. >> so if they had the low s.a.t., act they have to go the first semester not qualifying for a pell grant. but if they demonstrated then academic capability they would be? >> exactly. >> okay. >> giving students a second chance. >> okay. >> that was my other question. excellent. >> i am interested in intrigued might be a better word, the pell women -- well idea. could that be too costly for the government to administrate this thing? >> the cost is a good question. the way the pell well would work you're telling a student up front how much in dollars as opposed to percentages they do

now qualify for. percentage based on full-time enrollment don't translate women for students. dollars make sense. over a long run i'm not sure it cost anymore. because you're telling them a lifetime eligibility limit based on what congress recently did which was shrank it from 18 semester to 12. while an outlay may be in year one, over a five or ten year period i'm not sure costs go up. we are using a dollar amount as opposed to a percentage which is what we use now. >> okay. again, i thank all the witnesses, really helpful as we're trying to move forward to a reauthorization of the higher education act. i think this is our 11th or 12th something hearing to try to grapple with a lot of the issues. at lough has been focused on financial aid in the large specifically pell grants and loans and how do we do loans and all of those things. because it is a central to the issue of getting people access

to affordable education. and it's confusing. so again, thank you very much for your input here today. and madam chair, i'll yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for also being a great role model, and one person and maybe not our last hearing, but recently has suggested that we use the term contemporary student. so that's one of the suggestions that has been put out there. but we are looking for an alternative to using nontraditional since the nontraditional are now 75% of students. now recognize mr. inhofe for five minutes. >> thank you. as you stated in your testimony, a maximum -- covering more than a third of the average tuition public four-year institution due to the rising college cost.

in light of the diminishing purchasing power the pell grant now the lowest could you discuss the alliance pell recipient on federal student loan? i'm sorry can you repeat that? >> discuss the reliance of pell grants? >> nine out of ten pell grant students since student loans twice the rate of nonpell grant students. as you know, the average student who completes a four year degree does so with 12-7d ,000 in debt. right. we used to have a situation where grants were the base of student financial aid packages and loans supplemental. now we have a situation where loans are the base of financial aid packages and grants are supplemental. that diminishes student's ability to take on certain occupations when they leave. and it has a real impact particularly on students of certain demographic groups when it comes to loan aversion, debt

aversion, and the idea of even going higher education much less going a school. >> i agree with you. you indicated also that 60% of the african-american and 51% of latino undergraduates relied depend on the pell grant. thus could you elaborate on the importance of pell to minority students? >> yeah. that's absolutely correct. there have been a number of studies georgetown university's probably leading academic on this that indicate the united states is going to be in separate need of more students, more workers with post secondary certificates and degrees. where those students have to come from are low-income and minority populations. in particular, latino and african-american. reducing the pell grant, will have an effect on college access for low-income students. an disproportionate impact on

african-americans and latinos. we should be increasing our investment not decreasing it. >> i want you to elaborate on the recommendations that you listed on addressing the pell funding gaps. >> sure. as i mentioned, i think we should pursue targeted spending reductions that are directed at institutions as opposed to needy students inspect committee, congress, has dealt with pell grant shortfall and funding gap in recent years. almost all of those funding gaps and shortfall have been filled with student benefit cuts. we need to stop doing that. instead focus on spending reductions that are targeted at institutions or revenue enhancements. i've listed a number of possible revenue enhancement. one of my favorite ones has to do with the outstanding federal education federal loan volume. there's about $400 billion in federal family loans. every time one of those loans is paid off early, or converted to

the direct loan program, the government saves money. we should be incentivizing we should be authorizing the secretary of education to buy down that debt from boarers -- borrowers, lenders get rid of the debt. new america foundation estimates $17 billion over ten years can be saved that way. >> i thank you. >> dr. robinson, in your remarks, you spoke about revising the return to the title iv rules. but a student -- prior to completion a former student and her institution generally must return a portion under the federal financial aid. title 48 which includes pep grants. i wonder if you have compared that recommendation with the what we call for profit colleges and universities, which oftentimes recruit those who are

not college ready and somehow get them started. they get the pell grant and quit. very quickly. in fact, the numbers that i've seen indicate that 25% of the money available for pell grants is used up by only 10% of the students going to college through a for-profit colleges. what if they had to return 90% of the money they received from a pell grant or let's say $6 ,000 because the student dropped out early. can you discuss that with me? >> i haven't looked at that specifically, but i think making sure that students are accountable regardless of the type of institution they attend is very important. i think that there are many programs that provide a model for how to do that. i mentioned one in north carolina central ponte vedra month. i think there should be

incentive for institutions to make sure that the students who begin actually complete. >> let the record show i question the amount that the for-profit colleges are returning to us when the student drop out. >> thank you. i thank the committee for being here. it interested to see you spent some time in east lansing. an exciting place to be, especially with the saturday coming up. i say that knowing that university of michigan is in the room as well. [laughter] i'm proud of them. great game this weekend with ohio state. i appreciate your perspective especially dealing with financial advisers and managers of institutions. if the criteria for pell eligibility for made more rigorous, how do you think

institutions would respond to this change and how do you think this might affect per persistence specifically of the students? >> there's a tension between the eligibility requirement for financial aid and simplicity. making it simple enough that needy students apply for financial aid. in the past, that tension has been greater than it is today because we rely so much on technology. almost 100% not quiet but 100% of people who apply today do it through an online application that allows them to skip by questions that don't apply to them. it you are truly needy. other ways that were identifying you're truly need you. import information from the arrest or given a pass to the majority of the fasfa questions. so that tension that existed in the past doesn't truly exist today. so if we moved the period of time that students have to apply

get to rigorous questions for those on the cusp to find out if they are truly needy or not in the federal need analysis question. i think schools welcome that move. accessing to the education. >> i'm not sure there's research that shows the length between federal student aid eligibility at least in term of financial strength of a family and completion. what would mean more to success is moving back the application period so students have a clear idea and confidence of their financial aid package to know how much money they would have

to attend college. that would have a meaningful difference in persistence and completion. >> earlier this early i had the opportunity to hear testimony from inspector general of the department of education that pointed out that of the $32 billion will be spent on pell this year, nearly $1 billion that would be going to an individual who should not receive it. what you've instituted at the community college to discourage and prevent the potential for waste, fraud, and abuse sounds interesting from your testimony. can you expand upon that? are there other tools that may be helpful to consider in reauthorizationing the higher education act? >> yes. one of the implement an

affirmative daily attendance process. we tied that process with our dispersements. so if a opportunity is registered full-time. 12 credits right now. before that money will disperse, before the money disperses to the student account, our process goes over to check to see if that student has in fact started attending the class that the aid is going to be paying for. if they haven't had attendance recorded, that aid does not move we can closed the loophole. they were eligible for the money. >> students are aware of that? >> the students are fully aware of that. we publicize that. every semester, as you might imagine, we have a faculty once awhile that doesn't record attendance and the student comets in wanting to know where their money is. so it is a way to close that gap. the other thing that we've done

is for all of our students that are only online, we have a process that we run prior to dispersing funds we compare address. if we were to see multiple students coming from the same address. we would not disperse money. we would do a further check. we haven't found that yet. we have found a husband and wife or a father/son or something like that. we haven't found multiple students coming from the same depress. we have the process in place then. i thank the chairwoman. my time is expired. >> thank you very much. mr. loeb sack, your you're recognized. >> thank you for having the important hearing today. i want to thank all of you for being here today and offering some possible solutions to

tightening up the program so make sure we don't have waste, fraud, and abuse. i want to emphasize the first point, i think was tread lightly. this is something i think we have to be very careful we continue to have the program that provides access to these low-income students when we sure we want to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse and make sure they are held accountable and not make -- taking advantage of the system. we have heard stories about that. i saw many members heard me talking about i grew up in poverty myself. i had a single parent who had 11th grade education. like you, first generation college student. i wouldn't have been able to get my clog if not for my friends. i determined what i was going to do based in those on my friends. but i was able to take advantage

of programs like this to go to iowa state university. the last thing i want to see is these programs be e vis rated one way or another. i think it's important that we tread lightly. we keep in mind what the ultimate goal here is. that is to make sure students who don't always have the mosted a venn teenage use backgrounds have access to college education. not only for their own sake but for the sake of our country. but for the sake for the competitiveness of the united states of america. i think we to have keep that picture in mind as women. it and also, we talked a little bit about the skills gap. the community colleges are extremely important in this country. in the state of iowa, the governor and others have quite greatly pointed out and identified the skills gap and how community college can be very important in educating folks. so they can get in to those mid level skill job and community colleges are absolutely critical

on that as far as i'm concerned. in term of educating folks. community colleges are the key. i call them the intersection, if you will, between education and work force but the principle intersection. so we have to be care of the also that we not so restrict the environment out there for the students who want to go to the community colleges. you mentioned in passing or anything else on page 3.

by ending what is been called second pal or summer pal or community colleges that historically black colleges and universities in particular. and the situation is that a number of students are coming in underprepared academically. they have to take at least one developmental course. before they get the credit baring work they have to learn post secondary level what they are posed to be exposed to in high school which is why we should a college career ready course study for all students. high school level. but because they are behind, they are then behind at the end of their first year. they're not on track to graduate on time. they were catching up. when they were began the second year they were going to be

second-year student instead of a second-year student who has only 14 credits and really in effect a first-year student or 12 credits. second pell is having access impact particularly at community colleges and historically black colleges and universities. and they are hurting as a result of the reduction. not mention the needy students who are affected. >> thank you. i want to thank you for your testimony and thank you for indulging me. i normally don't take up this much of the five minutes with my own speech, if you will. i think it's really, really critical we keep in mind that we have to have a balance approach here and we have to tread lightly and cannot cut these programs. it will deprive students that take the initiative and the personal responsibility, i think we all value to invest themselves in the programs so they can be better students so

they can be better citizens. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, i thank you for being here today. like i'm the fist in my family to go to college and a maximum pell grant recipient and understand the importance of pell grants and helping student achieve the dreams and when we were having a debate on student loan interest rates i introduce some of the amendment that redirect the savings to funding pell grant. while it may be man ticks we talk about the federal financial aid making college more affordable. it makes it more assessable but not affordable. almost twice as health care cost and nearly four times four and a half times as fast as inflation. so what i want to know is what are we doing to try to address the cost.

why the cost of 6 post sec compair education have outstripped inflation so much over the last couple of decades. sphwhr it's very simple to don't conclusion that as we pore more financial aid and frustrating as we pour more financial aid to the system, the cost of college continues to increase. the price they pay. to the cost of providing education if you went back since the 1980 has run fairly parallel with inflation from the public

pooling together to state and local to individual families and the way they are doing it is primarily through loans. >> anyone else? i would say that that is part of the picture but certainly doesn't explain the entire picture. it doesn't explain why duke university is $50,000 now private universities have been

increasing the cost and tuition to students at the same time public universities. so thing have something going on with federal aid fueling. and enabling universities toen crease their tuition. the research done shows that pell grants are not i think one possible change that could be made to the formula determining how much aid students get for both loans and pell grants could be replacing the cost of attendance with the median cost of college. right now by using the cost of attendance in a formula, a student will get more aid by attending a more expensive university. that is helping to feed the ever increasing costs. >> a few quick points. first, i agree with him there's a big difference between grant

and loan aid in term of the impact on tuition inflation. there's no evidence that increasing in pell grants are driving increases in tuition pell grants have been cut in the past and tuition still gone up. the main reason it's going up we have a relatively finite supply of providers. we have very high demand is often irrational, underinformed and states and institutions that take advantage of that high demand but cut their own aid and shifting responsibility to students in the form of heightened loans. justin is right that a key is to maintain if not grow state aid for higher education or to slow the growth in public college tuition and fees. as i said, my testimony we argue that there is a ample opportunity for the committee not to mention other committees to target existing programs outside of pell consolidate the funds, give them to states, give

them to governors. create another tommy thompson or jerry brown or whoever any governor to maintain an outcome when it comes to college affordability. you guys can empower them to do that. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you very much. thank you for holding this series of hearings. i think they have been very helpful and very informative. i want to thank our panel of witnesses. i just want to pick up from the last line of questioning and answerrings. we've had multiple witnesses come before the committee. republican withins, democratic witnesses to testify on the impact real or imagined of availability of federal student financial aid relative to increase in cost. and almost without sale. say that have all testified there is no connection between

federal student financial aid programs and the extent to which costs are increasing. and when they almost all testify to the principle driver of college cost is what you just said. with that is to say the retreat from sporting public education on the part of the state and local community. i think we have to assess pell. we have to assays over title iv program. we thought assess them based on our actual experience. i think to continuously put in to the mix of our assessment what is essentially a canard. it's driving increase in cost is not helpful and doesn't help us assess the future of these programs as we must. i know this is about the future of pell. i want to focus on the current status of pell. and the current law, it is that

pell will be exposed to sequestration with the next academic year. that could result in a cut to pell as much as 7%. and from the advantage point of your national organization from the advantage point of your community ledge. what impact would have a reduction in pell some $2.5 billion. what impact would it have on the students you deal with every day? >> that really is a good question. what we expect is going to happen the student that is fully pell, with a zero efc, 7% reduction certainly is going to hurt them. it will pay for all of their classes but reduce the amount they have for books. the more troublesome students are getting a little bit of

pell. kind of mid pell range or right on the cusp of pell. they will increase the borrowing in order to make up for the shortfall. >> thank you. >> it is exacerbates a regressive policy of pushing low-income students in to loans. that's the best case scenario. the worst case is they stop out or drop out entirely. the other issue with budget funding is it pushes up against deadlines once again students and parents don't have a sure picture of how much they are getting in financial aid when they make college-going decisions this next winter and spring. >> just to be clear, i think it's important we can't lose sight exposed to sup to a 7% reduction as a result of sequestration.

i would imagine they are tough cuts for your student to absorb; is that correct? >> yes. >> thank you. another issue this committee has looked at an idea that steams to -- seems to have great currency on capitol hill is the idea of one grant one loan, one work. under the heading of simplefully indication. it has somewhat seductive allure to it. constitutions like the idea and simplicity of one grant, one loan. they also like in students need the campus-based program. the idea of work study. >> that's my principle concern. one grant one loan. and i can see where it would be more simple for the individuals you represent the financial aid officer i think we would all agree with more interested in

making it simple for students as oppose to the financial aid officer with all due respect. absolutely and school need the campus flex tobility help meet needs. >> could you concur with that? >> yes. i do. thank you, i yield back. >> thank you. i would like to start out with you. i'm from indiana and i was pleased to see that you mentioned the indiana 21st century scholar program. as we talk about the federal government's responsibility and the state's responsibility, can you just expand for the hearing a bit about more about the 21st century scholar program and the success we have seen in indiana for a long period of time?

one thing they go very well is tell students and families upfront there's money available to them. in a commitment if they need certain criteria at the secondary level. so is it easier that the ante-dote we come down from our members is easier for students to say isn't for me. what we find is that that's

right. they are informed early and given the promise. the second part is they meet the commitment. it's not only telling that it's available but then actually coming through with the dollars to make it available. i know we've had thousand and thousand of students. we've had over 100,000 students participate in the 21st century scholar program. it requires a state commitment as well. are any other states even contemplating it? not identical the other large state promise prak has program has been the georgia hope citizenship. it's gone through eligible changes in recent years, georgia hope is another program that is shown that if you promise students early and parents early it will change, i was at our

state's collegety college. we talked about attendance and i find interesting they take attention which i think is a novel concept for colleges as i understand. how they the students or teachers or the professors actually take attendance? >> we had our programmers develop an join line process that ties in to the rest of our student system. >> and so when students comes in to the actual classroom, they're actually is an attendance process as they sit in the seat?

i asiewment because we have seen in a lot of colleges after that census cutoff date there actually is a period of time stlnt when students would disappear? >> yes. that is true. do you think we ought to use that as an innovative way to ensure that students aren't just taking the loan money, which we do know and as you talk to talk about and professors they have seen it happen? it was one of the best way to monitor that. when the subject came up two years ago the negotiated rulemaking session for program integrity issues, as you might imagine, there were a large number of organizations and schools that pushed back against the concept.

they stopped short of has been dating it. they took a look at it and saw it was a good way to move forward. >> do you have any idea what it costs to implement a program like that? are there many costs? >> i was never informed as to what that cost for programming was. i know that except for a few faculty, it was well-received by the majority of faculty on our campus. any other -- i see my time is up about the integrity issues. i'll yield back. thank you. >> thank you. i think we have the opportunity to ask the panel members to submit information to us after the hearing. on that issue. we're happy to look in to that.

you are recognized for five minutes. thank you. let me get a few facts straight. first, i believe you have said that the current pell grant is about of a third of the cost of attending a public institution. going back three and a half decades it was nearly three quarters the cost of attending a public institution; sthecialght? >> correct. i have some figure for rutgers university that shows that the state appropriations going rutgers are is less the dollar amount is less now than it was 20 years ago. and in fact over the last more than two decades it's gone from

65% of the cost being paid by the state and 35% being paid out of tuition and fees to just the opposite. is that -- are those figures typical of states around the country? that's consistent with national trends. >> so pell grants are more important than ever but significantly smaller. so now let me get to the kind of big picture here. is it established that the cost to a student is the greatest determinant of attending college? >> again, the number one reason they diet for not attending or dropping out is cost. financial concerns. >> as i hear from corporate planners and economists.

we need more not fewer college-educate workers in this country. does any of you know any estimates by economists of the benefit to our economy of having half a million, one million, 10 million more college-educate workers? now only have they cited the benefits for but even going to some college has economic benefit for a community and individual. >> so even if there's a dropout rate that is higher than we would like for pell recipients

some students have no intention of completing a certificate or degree. the intention to take a few courses to be able to increase. , i mean, you know, some of the discussion today has dealt with waste fraud, and effect of college aid on reducing individual initiative and the preparation particularly for those on the short end of the to

help people go to college. my question is, are we even close to a shrinking marge nalt return? are we even close. you look like maybe you want to address that. the short answer we're not even close. the difference in annual earnings between someone with bachelor's degree versus a high school diploma is over 20*6rd ,000 a year. that translates in to $5,000. >> so deficit or not or maybe especially if we have a national deficit. spending money on pell grants is

red investment for our taxpayers. >> yeah. i was going correct you and say it's not spending. it's investment. you are correct. thank you. i appreciate the opportunity. the porps of moving as a nation away from a philosophy toward higher education i've lived importance of the degree. but of course the world has changed a lot in the last 40 years. i would say the federal financial aid system is one of the great success story in the

history of the federal government. when our goal was access, we have provided access to higher education for people in the country. like never seen before. in a degree that us value. the income won't be higher. people are graduating with disagrees that make their income no higher. we now have to move from a system that provide access alone to one that incents success so making people's lives better. of course, while it's happening. costs have gone up too. people are now leaving if they don't get a degree most often would too argue they're literally worse off if not just had that access. what i've seen i'm the sort of

product of the education reform efforts in k and through 12 in indiana. we saw our graduation rate over a period of six years through a series of reform a lot of hard work for teachers, prince principles an a set reform that gave the tool. tray were quick to the table to bring their own innovative reform. we have made a lot of change. if you could expand a little i think measuring success rates graduation rates and pell grant would give us an opportunity to see where we are and go develop policies not look to reduce what we spend in pell grant but look

to better spend that money in ways that leads students to success. we're going to be able to move forward and see what works and what doesn't. i would like to see graduation rates published so we can move to focusing on how we can make sure that students get from that ak eases to success. one way of doing that universities have to disclose. they don't have to report the information. and i think that would be a

necessary step. we have information available to answer more of the outstanding questions about what helps pell recipient become successful. >> yeah. thank you. i was intrigued my your comment to increase flexibility if i were to make another observation what changed in 40 years. we have a system focused on a sort of four homecomings kids showing up. it's not many of our students. and today's world talk about more expand on your discussion of. the nonthat diggal student or contemporary student, if you will. 75% of students now going part time. so while many of us think that limiting the months of pell are

semester is get is a good move. within that, part time student getting hurt because the eligibility is being used up quicker because they really should only be taking nine credits. question want what they should be. it's one of the things that we're concerned about. thank you. >> ma'am chairman, i yeemed back.

i worked my way through community college, college, and law school with the combination of grants, loans with, and work study. i truedly appreciation the importance what we're doing today. and believe that every student should have that access regardless of his or her socioeconomic status. and pell grants were founded as basis of the federal financial aid system. it's an important topic we're talking about.

individual institutions then change the nature of their aid as students. they start emphasizing nonneed base instead of need-based aid in order to try to track students that able to pay something. i think we need innovative thinking. morgan is studying the pay forward and pay back program. i'm interesting in seeing what happens with the study.

and you talked about the pell promise. how would such a program be implemented successfully. and what support would be needed from the federal government if we were to do something like that at the federal level? the benefit we've talk abouted from the federal level, i think, very little would need to change except that it could be modeled on something like we do with social security today. where you're given a statement along the way letting you know how much money would be available to you. that piece of knowledge is empowering people to hopefully make wise decisions during their career for retirement. something similar in higher education. so that based on the fact that somebody is already taking utilizing some state or federal means tested benefit we know they are low-income. showed that for our neediest students their income levels don't change greatly for middle school to high school to college. if you're poor odds are you

going to be poor if you go to college. we can identify and notify them early. >> thank you. if your testimony you mentioned your belief that only very low-income students, that was your phrase in your testimony, should receive pell grants. if in fact, the proposal that you significant were in effect then more students what would they do? drop out or not start college or take on more loan debt? what happens to all the students who are currently eligible who wouldn't be eligible under your proposal? they would go a combination of things in order to achieve some kind of higher education. some might choose less costly constitutions. some might take out loan.

>> i want to follow up. you mentioned limited research. do you know how many students were studied in that study? i found it intriguing when you said that actually i found surprising. i have to go back and look. i don't have the figureoff hand. more students to have to rely on loan. it's important keep in mind that it's like a great secret in higher education system. what is going to happen they will stop drop out. go from full-time status to i'm

status. if they go from i'm to part-time they will be much less likely to complete. >> thank you. my time is expired. thank you. thank you for bringening expertise here. obviously the typically student has changed, i think dramatically. i think continue to evolve or i know when i went to college my cohort we were largely it was 18 to 22-year-old something like that. there was on campus and pursuing in education. but today it's deterring how do we make the program flexible enough to make people's educational needs at every point in their lifetime?

i want to come back to a couple of points. what percentage of students at the community college or nationally require remedial education? i've been told it's a relatively high number. in context some of the students are testing in to remedial math. one of the reasons is that they were really good students in high school and by the time they got to grade 10 or 11 they had taken all the the math requirement. they were taking nothing in grade 12 when they went to do the testing, they were showing they needed a developmental class in order take college-level algebra. there's some context there. it's a fairly high number.

remediation is a big part of what they do as well. saints across the board. any idea how much of the pell fund that we use for remedduation at this point? are students can take up to 30 pell grants will pay for it. the about one in three college students today are taking remedduation naicialtly. 50% of students at community colleges are remediating and just about a third are or 20 or 30% for the schools. pell grants cannot be used solely for remediation.

they can take the course work integrated in to a program and rich pointed out. there's a cap. while it may be not insignificant dollar amount. it's not unlimited by any means. >> okay. dr. robinson, your testimony talks about shifting deaf -- definition from 12 to 15 credits college completion. and the benefits there are kind of obvious. obviously you have reducing the overall of debt in order to get a earn your return on investment sooner. it's not the degree of value. it's return on investment that comes from it. kind of reflected where i see

our educational system needs to be and be more flexible at different part throughout a person's lifetime or on specifically pell eligible students. i think the significant exact comes in looking at how you go from that 15-hour point. ic the way that you prorate for hours after that makes a difference. i think he mentioned that you pay the same for nine and 11. i think the prorating should be 11 and 9, 10, all the prorated percentage. so students are using the money as they are taking courses and not have to pay for time.

much better off to be full-time. as you said, they don't have debt or don't have six years of debt or five years of debt. the request from the panelist. the key part to this is going financial literacy among students and parents so they are choosing. you submit any recommended research on how do we increase financial literacy among what has been. i continue think it's traditional anymore. but post high school. post secondary in to college. that would be very helpful. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. you are recognized for five minutes.

i feel like a great example of someone who went to the system far too many years ago. i when talk to students -- it wasn't considered tie wogs then. they are shocked by that. it's a shift of 75 percent i wanted to ask you a little bit your i wasn't sure you base the claim that pell grants to moderate you said middle class students i think 30 to 45,000 or so i would not sure that's always middle class in everybody's mind. whether they are less likely to graduate. what is a cause l relationship there?

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>> one of the most interesting pieces of research out there on the fact of low income students, the study published in -- by the national bureau of economic research. they ran a control study which is very rare. basically they look that tells students who are getting a supplemental need-based aid program in wisconsin and those who are not fans what they found was for $1000 in additional need they stayed to tell students those students were going to return for a second year of study at the rate of three, a little over 4% higher. the point is increased investment increases the likelihood of retention and therefore progression completion. >> is there a sense too that the community is counting on those students in some way? is the fact that students feel

perhaps it's a little bit mark sedwill and more value to that they have a contribution to make to give back? >> i think that's especially true with the promise programs that justin was referencing and, but since i'm giving him applause i also want to criticize the idea that we can just give students in eighth grade a statement of how much financial aid they will get and that will drive them to school. it's not enough. americans overestimate the cost of higher education. what indiana does is much better. what indiana does is provide a guarantee that you can go to school tuition fee free. and number isn't enough. there needs to be a concept. >> one of the things you mentioned earlier was rather than targeting the students that you target the schools in terms of making some of the changes that need to be done and also there are loans outside of spell that we would need to deal with. could you be a little bit more expansive about that and are

there ideas out there now that are really out-of-the-box thinking that people talk talk about but we are we are not quite willing to move forward on >> yeah. first of all you're absolutely right traitor think that's been a big area we have neglected the importance of institutional role not when it just comes to financially to an increased need aced a versus nonneed a stayed but it makes a tremendous amount of difference when it comes to completion. we see similar institutions that get dramatic the different results. one of the outside of the box ideas is an effort to provide funds to states to hold institutions accountabaccountab le for their performance with low income students in terms of increased implementation. san diego state is one of the better schools in the country as a matter fact when it comes to completion among low income

underrepresented minority students as compared to peer institutions. >> a lot of that is based on the number of support system set up elton and a whole host of other community organizations. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. ms. wilson you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you madam chairman for holding this hearing today. the federal pell grant program is a lifeline for more than 9 million students every year. the program can make the difference between the life of poverty and a good meaningful middle-class career. the pell grant program is also a lifeline for america's economy. for african-american and latino students, education is the only, the only steppingstone out of poverty.

there are very few dollars to inherit from the family trust. there are very few african-americans and latinos that can save enough to send their children to college so the pell grant is key. we need more students to undertake higher education in order to close the skill gap and boost productivity. but so many families are struggling to cover rising costs while some exaggerate the funding gap with regard to pell, the fact is that the program has been cut by more than $50 billion and is projected to remain stable. it's very important to note that 40% of the growth in pell grants costs since 2008/09 has been due to the increased number of pell eligible students in this period of high unemployment, not due to

policy changes. what this says to me is simple. we can reduce the cost of the pell grant program by getting americans working again. once we get americans working again we will have fewer enrollees with fewer families requiring assistance. so this congress has to turn back to its regular focus on jobs and i have a few questions for all of our witnesses. while there is a great deal of focus on completion pressure and nontraditional school year models taking classes in the summer months is often impossible for low income students who support themselves and other family members. what are the reasonable numbers of semesters for someone should be eligible for pell, taking into consideration the factors that impact low income students,

especially latinos and african-americans? >> from our perspective, the aggregate limit may not be off six years of full-time eligibility may not need the broad number. what we would advocate for is more flexibility so students could enroll on an ongoing basis so instead of reaching a summer term or semester and saying i feel more program eligibility and i'm going to -- that increases the likelihood of them not returning that they could continue to stay continuously enrolled by providing them again a well of pell funds. >> there has been a lot of talk about the contemporary student which i think is a good term as well. the contemporary bachelor's degree recipient gets their degree in five years, not four. they talk about 10050 times six years that's 150% of time

working off of an old antiquated calendar of four years of bachelor's degrees. i think we need to ask ourselves whether we should be pulling back even further on the amount of eligibility that students have in terms of time or dollars. >> okay. we have talked a lot about disinvestment from the state. i would like to find out what you think can be done to ensure that this investment in higher education funding on the state level does not continue to uphold the purchasing power of the pell grants. what can be done and? to help with that? >> i'm looking at the sheet. i'm looking at congressman tyranny because he is the champion here in the college

access small grant program. there's also a provision that appeared in american recovery and reinvestment act for higher education funding in states were responsive particularly to aara because they are substantive substantial amount of funding. that's with the problem. it's too small. what can be done? of this can provide a substantial amount of funds to states and institutions in order to leverage increased support for higher education either in terms of maintaining state investment or push on the institutions to keep costs down. you can do that by targeting funds outside the pell grant program, outside of unsubsidized loans. >> anyone else? any ideas to incentivize states to invest more in their colleges or robinson, you said that, i

would like for you to elaborate further on the limited studies that show that some low income students respond better to loans into grants. what in your experiencexperienc e and research have you found to be the impact of high debt burdens on persons purchasing power, well-being and life time career prospects? >> ms. wilson. i'm going to ask dr. robinson if she would submit her response to you in writing since you are out of time. and i would commend to you the study that dr. robinson has authored entitled pell grants, where does all the money go? i am sure she will make available to you a copy of that and it has a great ably augur fee. mr. tierney you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you very much. mr. dannenberg you were talking earlier.

we try to put a maintenance effort into the stimulus. some of that we have out there but you are right to see acg is very small as a set off on that and we had quite a fight just to get that. it was difficult to identify something that would put at risk school's not too and maintain their efforts so when i look at your comment about the education 10 offsets to finance a flexible state and institutional fund for needy students to be given some sort of guarantee could you explain and maybe use the example of what those 10 ideas were and how that would work? >> sure. we have identified grants loans and tax benefits that could be used. let me start with a low-hanging fruit, tax benefits. the hope scholarship tax credit used to limit $120,000 in family income.

that is the 80th percentile nationally. the obama administration which i worked 10 extended the higher education tax benefits for -- markedly and i think that is then a laudable accomplishment but it also increased the income level at which people can get an american opportunity tax credit formerly hope all the way up to $80,000 away from the 80th percentile to the 95th percentile. why are we providing tax benefits and that some $7 billion a year to folks in the top income quintile. why is it that mitt romney -- i have three, 529's but why can mitt romney get tax benefits attached to it when he is students need of pell grants? closer to an attack site but i think there are others in the committee's jurisdiction. >> that is an interesting concept and we may follow up with you.

the other is financial incentives to borrowers that have ffel loans to get them to convert their debt to a direct loan on that basis. have you worked out specifics as to how you think that program would work? >> actually the department of education administered a small similar program that allowed borrowers to have bells federal loans and direct loans to combine them and consolidate them into the direct loan program and gave them lower interest rate in doing so. what i'm suggesting is essentially that effort and much more aggressively implemented by the secretary where he went to students who have existing federal loans now sizable amounts and said look, consolidate into the direct loan program and we will cut your interest-rate and we will give you a cashback. we will lower your principle and the student will benefit and us the taxpayer in the federal

government will benefit because we won't be paying out as much in subsidies on these old loans frankly which a lot of providers would like to get off their books because they no longer have the same income stream of new family education loans. >> lastly one of you mentioned at one point and i will defer to members on that the cost of looks to students. we recently filed legislation trying to get textbook materials more accessible to students to on line to otherwise reduce the cost. does anyone want to speak to the impact on students for what is now pretty high cost for textbooks? >> yeah trade the cost of textbooks definiteldefinitel y has increased over the last number of years and it keeps going up every year. most institutions that i'm familiar with have a for i.d. of ways that students can get those books. we implemented a process a couple of years ago where they

actually could run the textbooks so we always have a buyback provision so they can bring the text books back at the end of the semester. we buy them back. they can rent them. they also have the opportunity of course to purchase their textbooks on line from a noncollege provider. the problem that we have right now that we haven't been able to solve is for those community college students that want to live there books electronically and actually providing them money up front so that they can get those textbooks electronically. and we have persisted doing that because we found historically when we provided money up front, that is before the class has actually started, students took the money and didn't show up for class of trying to balance that issue is an ongoing problem for

us. >> i yield back. >> i now yield myself five minutes. dr. robinson, taxpayers deserve to know if their hard-earned money is being spent to privately by the federal government. your testimony talks about the lack of data points to show how pell grants students are faring in college. and we have talked a lot about this issue and several members have raised questions that could you share with us what specific data point should be added into the lot during the upcoming reauthorization to help provide us with better information on how pell grants students are doing? >> i think the first six is to enforce what was already started in 2008 with a higher education reauthorization. go from disclosure of pell

graduation rates at the institutional level to actually requiring that the reported. disclosure is only minimally useful if it becomes difficult for researchers and the department of education to get data on a widescale basis and it is that widescale data that we need in order to do any kind of methodological look at how pell students are doing. secondly, i think beginning post-secondary education longitudinal data are extremely important. i think it would be very nice effect to be done more often. right now we are still looking at data that begins in a three/04 and what i can tell we can't expect any new data for quite some time. seeing that data may be every five years would be considerably more helpful than the rate at

which we see right now. because it is that longitudinal data that tracks students over time that allows us to see what happens from the moment a student enters to where they are four, five, six or 10 years later and i think most importantly that data must be transparent. the department of education obviously needs to be able to look at the data but outside organizations from the pope center to individual centers and schools of education can add a lot of insight to the arguments about pell if they have access to meaningful data. >> thank you very much. mr. draeger can the reforms you talk about in your testimony, held promise, pell willen super

pell be implemented without dramatically increasing the cost of the program? how can we ensure that the program does not continue to grow at the rates we have seen over the past five or six years? >> we have party scene the cost of the pell grant program leveling out and so partly because of a partial or slow recovery and partially because congress has rolled back some of the eligibility criteria that it originally had five, six or seven years ago and in my written remarks that included the appendix of those eligibility changes. the reforms we have put forward we don't believe over a five or 10 year period of time would cost more because congress has put in place limitations on the full extent to which students can utilize the pell grant. what we are talking about is now making that pell grant information available to students much earlier and giving them more flexibility so that contemporary student can use them for an innovative learning

model program, a competency-based program or on an ongoing basis in terms of exhausted eligibility. >> the thank you very much. mr. heath how can the federal government insists -- assists institutions in easing fraud while providing -- >> i think they can continue to do what they started to do about 18 months ago when this was becoming more of a problem nationwide. the follow up with the students to show up on our records when they come in is expensive but what we have found in a follow-up is that many of those students were not really legitimate students. that is the transcript that came

in from other colleges when they finally turned the men showed little or no academic progress whatsoever. so, they can continue to do what they put into place but certainly require every college that has large numbers of students that are moving from school to school, to make sure that those records that they get and have been thoroughly reviewed and those that are not progressing academically when they are changing schools, that the eligibility for financial aid simply is not there coming through the door. they would have to come in and establish their own academic route with that college. >> the thank you very much. i want to thank all of our witnesses here today. you are a distinguished panel and we very much appreciate your

taking the time to appear before the subcommittee today. you have given us a lot to think about, a lot to read. your testimony is pretty expansive. your written testimony is a lot to read and considered. mr. tierney do you have some closing remarks? >> on behalf of the ranking member and the other members of the panel i want to thank you for your efforts and the work you have prepared in advance in your testimony and i suspect your availability on an ongoing basis to help us with policies on that. ranking member and any other members i want to let you know that we want to strengthen the pell grant program and continue to expand affordability and accessibility to college and hopefully both sides of the aisle will work to strengthen the pell grant program and the affordability in making a top priority for congress. with your efforts and your help we will be able to move in that direction and i think everyone for the work at this hearing. >> thank you mr. tierney.

most of my colleagues have made comments about having been, having come from low-income families and work their way through college. some of them utilizing the pell grants. i think many of us who have been involved in higher education understand the value of the pell grant program. i will -- my friends a little bit like saying not only did i come from extremely low income family, i worked my way through school but i worked with students who received pell grants. i was around in 1972 when the bee eog program started and i remember it very well. i was working with upward bound students and low-income students at appalachian state university. i ran a special services program and the program for disadvantaged appalachian and african-african- american students. so i'm very well aware of the

value of financial aid and particularly the pell grant program. i know we all want to strengthen the program so that it is available to the truly needy students because there are students out there who need it and there are students who can benefit from the program and who can benefit our culture as a result of attending higher education. we want to utilize these hearings to highlight the problems or concerns that exist and figure out ways we can update the federal laws to ensure they are keeping up with how our universities are educating students. so today i have noticed a plethora of statistics. maybe more than usual in our comments so i want us to keep in mind how we utilize statistics

to define the problems that exist. several of you have discussed how the buying power of pell grants has decreased significantly over time yet according to figures calculated by the congressional research service the pell grant covers approximately 72% of the published end state tuition and fees at four-year public institutions. we know that it covers more than enough of the cost of fees and tuition at community colleges. i think we can all find statistics to help us define our arguments and their points. we just need to make sure that we understand the context in which the statistics are being used and i think as we go through with further hearings and looking at these programs we will do our best to make sure that we have data and i think all of you, especially dr. robinson, have pointed out

the need for us to get reliable information and that's something i am very much interested in. i think all of us are again so that we can make sure the truly needy students are getting the help they need. again i think everyone for being here. my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and there being no further business, the hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

at the white house today press secretary jake carney was asked about people encountering problems at healthcare.gov. here is a look. >> getting back to the backend process you said you were confident that these issues would be worked out before january 1 but obviously you can't guarantee there might be some folks out there who might see potentially a gap in their coverage because they thought they were insured at their enrollment package did not get to the insurance company properly so can the administration guarantee people that if they get a hospital or medical help for thousands of dollars that should have been covered under obamacare is with this prudential gap in coverage that was an overtly cause because of computer problems that they won't have to pay that bill? >> first of all there is not an insurance policy called obama karen i think it's important to the viewers that they understand their purchasing private

insurance. first of all. secondly the general contract of queue ssi has stood up a team of experts working closely already with insurers to make sure that every 834 form past and present is accurate in time for january 1 and i'm confident we will be able to achieve that. going back to this story cited earlier today, even though we feel, even though we believe that the description is inaccurate in terms of what is happening today even if you look back at the worst period after the launch of the troubles we had with the web site the fact is very few people as we know now because we have the october numbers were enrolled. the universe of people who might have in their enrollment problems with 834 forms is not particularly large which is an outcome of the problems we had with the web site. i'm telling you that the contract and the issuers are working together and will make

sure that every 834 form both past and present october 1 and forward is accurate. >> medicare beneficiaries have until saturday to change their medicare health plans and prescription drug coverage for 2014. tomorrow morning here on c-span2 the house hearing on with the affordable care act means for medicare starts at 10:00 easter. the white house today kicked off events focusing on the health care law with remarks by president obama. we want to get your thoughts as facebook.com/c-span. you can see the president at that event in a little more than a half-hour from now on c-span at 8:00 eastern.

ben smith is editor-in-chief of the web site does feed. he spoke at the new york club recently about the role of social media and journalism for about half an hour. [applause] >> i should switch this to my notes for my presentation. give me one second here. this event has confirmed from everything that i already knew about it which is both the incredible warmth and the fact that the radio people run the place. [laughter] when i started he came as a cover reporter to city hall, two

past presidents who were among the very generous people who welcomed me as the new right-wing daily at the new york sun so it's really nice to be here in and to dishonor to be on stage with oaks, like all the ones who were just honored. that is the end of the slideshow give me one second here. maybe the best way to do it is this. so the topic of this is how the social web is good for journalism and i thought i would define the jargon. i hate the word content to give actually. like news entertainment, good enough words. i have them in my bio, and i'm going to purge it. by the social web what i mean is

this is basically isn't the future but the president. it's just when people open their computers are increasingly their phones the application they opeb site. they open twitter or facebook and the challenge for news organizations is how do you get to that strain? how do you make the kind of reporting and the kind of entertainment that people want to share and will share on facebook, on twitter and pinterest and whatever the next platforms are? i guess i wanted to start with my history and with how i notice the social web had replaced the old-fashioned log is fear that i grew up in and started a couple of political blogs here and

particularly in 2008 when i was writing for politico. they were probably 10,000, two dozen political blogs which were aware of the central conversation happening. you have this very immediate sense that you are doing what a lot of us were doing just writing directly for readers. if i've stepped away from the blog for one hour people would send me e-mails, are you dead? and it had very direct relationships with hundreds and hundreds of readers whose names i knew who would e-mail me tips. you got tips in this nice immediate way if people felt they were in a conversatconversat ion with you and they would forward you some document that their boss told them not to share which is a fun way to do reporting. after, at some point soon after 2008 i could kind of feel, the blogs have their flaws. one of them was that you are fighting with someone there was

no good way and this is the basic thing you did on blogs is argue with other bloggers so if i was fighting with marcus i would have to e-mail him. i just attacked you and here's the link to the attack. i hope you will link me before you attack a back. this was not the most efficient thing in the world and it was a little weird. as the service called twitter grew up in politics it had a much more efficient way to do that which is you just tag someone's name in the tweet. so for that reason and others you could sort of feel the centralized conversation which had once happened between the voice on the bus and always happened on the phone and e-mail with reporters but it always happened and then to have it on these blogs that moved into public on twitter in a way that was more efficient and a lot of fun. i made the mistake of mentioning this to a reporter at some point them out was meant to be a puffy profile of let it go and it

turned into the story of how twitter was going to destroy us. but that was very much my you know, my sense really is a reporter. when i had a scoop what i would do is tweet it and see people were sharing it and scoops are one of the basic kinds of people want to share. if there is new news you want to tell your friends about it. so both as a consumer getting my news from twitter and as a reporter, it was pretty clear that this social web has become the place where, where political journalism and politics is often kind of the early adapter here because politicians are basically kind of running the organizations. they are obsessed with media and obsessed with their image of course. the kind of live through the media so they tend to be on the round edge of these things. and as twitter kind of consumed

political reporting, it started to consume politics. it's not just that people are commenting on politics. so much of politics is making statements and engaging and by the 2012 campaign that was the central space in which the action of politics was actually happening. you saw, and i couldn't not include a gift in this presentation. so you see both the operatives for obama and for romney attacking each other in this almost stops the heart of my reporter lizzie gray the she tweeted something inside of the hearing several months ago and at this point the politicians had to fully conversation and in fact their communications professionals are very good at it. rosie tweets criticism or treats

his suggestiosuggestio n that they are avoiding a sensitive topic in the bring and barbara mikulski picks up her black very looks at it and starts yelling at rosie from the dais. my heart almost stopped as we were watching it. but it just marks the social conversation has become the central political conversation and i guess, which i just think is kind of a fact, love it or hate it. i guess the argument i would make is the basic kinds of things that people want to share and news primarily travels on twitter. some of this is also true for facebook but there's also tons of other things that travel on facebook. the kinds of things that people like to share that you see people share on twitter are basically the kinds of things that most of us got into this business to do which is to get scoops into did the original reporting, smart analysis and the angst you don't see people

sharing like here's an aggregated version of the story someone wrote two hours ago which is what search engines dominate what everyone is trying to do. a lot of what we have been investing in and in what we find successful is hiring great reporters to go out and get stories and get things that are not on the internet and put them on the internet essentially of which these are some examples. and it's true. it's great for beat reporters. these are kind of vertical ice conversations by experts and players in these different fields so there's a scoop about how a tv show fell apart for a big corporation. there's a built-in conversation where you have smart people or players in the stories commenting on them and calling you out if you are wrong and this is fun stuff. and really satisfying stuff and

mostly white people want to become reporters. and so we have been able along those lines to expand in a bunch of different directions. some of these things or most of them are areas that news organizations came up covering and there are also categories that are rooted in the web and nostalgia is big. the latest thing we have been doing that we are really excited about is other news organizations pullback is a big opportunity i think to invest in foreign correspondents so we have people in russia and the couple in the middle east and asia. if you follow that corner of twitter and the social conversation around the latest on syria if what you have got is your take on an ap story for 20 minutes ago and no one really cares but what you have got is alive rigid and a reporting,

something that is faster and better than anyone else, that's what people are going to share in what is going to travel. the other thing that lives on the social web that has become very challenging and complicated and interesting thing is breaking news. i think anybody who has worked in the newsroom knows that it's just a total disaster when there's a big story. you are sending reporters to the guys house, that you've got all sorts of theories that you would never want anyone to nonpublic. folks and broadcast no until it's written down on twitter in the early hours of any catastrophe anchors are often saying stuff that turned out to be wrong just because often this comes from the best sources and law enforcement sources and law enforcement sources during the early hours of the catastrophe are often confused or have bad

information. then you quote a source of the fbi which turned out to be wrong. there is a cnn reporter who on 9/11 was -- he was crouched down in a storefront downtown and herded to a. he was on the phone with anchor and he said i just heard another explosion. he looked out by the inside track passing. that one was disconnected and it's a foundational thing now is this third explosion that cnn rep ported and then covered up. but what is now changed is all that happens in public. every crazy theory, every interesting betting conclusive fact is now out there on twitter and your readers are swimming in the see sea of this stuff. and then there's this choice of

du trying to traditional ways to keep your hands clean and not engage things you were not sure to which is kind of the approach to traditional up roche because you don't want floating harebrained theories to go to your readers. if your readers are swimming in these waters is much hours very much our, they learned that there is then an explosion or that miley cyrus has done something crazy on twitter and then they come to a web site like ours to figure out what's going on and to navigate it. we certainly with the boston bombing we researched all the traffic from people coming to twitter trying to understand what was going on. we have defined a responsible way to navigate all this information to say clearly here's what is true but also one of the things that people increasingly care about is what

is false because they have heard all the false stories. one of the most widely increasingly have seen his debunking. another thing we hear is here is what people are saying and here's why they are saying it in what is -- and here's what we know about it. it's a tricky thing to navigate but an interesting and challenging one. we are proud of our coverage of the boston bombing particularly from "the new york times" reporter who is irritated about how helpful we are. that is in part because of philosophies you have to find them confusing and chaotic situations. basically what i've been talking about the latest spreads on twitter which is the core social program for news but the biggest social platform is the source that has overtaken google as a source of traffic from on line

news organizations for facebook. hard news spreads on google and its stuff with emotional power that tends to spread on facebook photojournalism or great storytelling and emotionally compelling and inspiring stories these are a couple of examples. i think our view is that a lot of things that reporters have always wanted to do are included in the kinds of things that we do well. really much more so that earlier iterations. a clicky often misleading salacious headline or search engines which are great ford diet pills and other fundamentally private things.

they aren't unlike social places where you are sharing step you are out to share which is often good journalism. this was like a particularly interesting one for me. this was this horrendous moment when it was on "fox news" last year where a guy was in the car chase and got out of the car and shot himself. they didn't catch him delay which prompted a lot of discussion on what is appropriate to air and to show. our use when people are talking about something we will show you the whole video and not edit it and give people a choice. i realize that's a close in different column. the reporter that did it took a lot of for it. we center out to phoenix a few weeks later to do long reported story on what had happened with this guy who randomly jumped out of the car and killed himself.

it's interesting to see the story that got more readers with the deep dive into the narrative rather than the reported hit and it does seem there is a lot of space for both, a lot of space for different kinds of journalism and this new social web. i think that's all i've got. they suggested i take some questions and i would love to. should evil come to the mic lexi should come to the mic. hi steve. >> i wonder if you think the definition of journalism has changed or evolved say in the last 25 years or from a previous generation? >> i hate to admit that i was not around 25 years ago, but i

think on line journalism to date pretty bad detour for several years. i don't know i mean rewrite his eyes been a big part of journalism and aggregation as i spent a big part of journalism. not maybe the most satisfying thing. i think there was an obsession with search engines for several years where there was this notion that the way to succeed was to hand it over to the techies and there's a technical trick even if it wasn't good and it was optimized. and that's still true for search engines aren't search engines armed less important as -- no one is going to share something they retreat into reading. i think basically there are some favorite things that are a lot more old-school.

>> i'm wondering how you are able to do that with your model. >> i think a lot of smart reporters see the business as going from melting ice floe to melting ice floe. i think for a lot of her orders in their 20s it's hard to see the career path of the a big organization -- at least it's not as secure so people are interested in taking risks and also for younger rep orders that is helpful. economically. we have headed to bitcoin. we sell ads and this is my side of the house. we have a traditional firewall

and i think our theory about ads is that you can usually tell the ads on the web site as they are terrible and annoying like they flash across the screen and block that little x to make it go away. readers hate that in brands don't want to be in the business of jamming things in your face or that you hate them for it. that type of keeps falling every year and we are with a different model which are ads are fun lists but in the service of an advertising campaign. to me the tradition but preferable advertising tradition is things like fashion magazines like vogue, if you cut the ads from vogue fewer people would buy it. they are gorgeously produced and shot by amazing photographers and readers are not confused but see them as engaging in content.

if you didn't have ads in the super bowl fewer people would watch it. >> your sponsored content which you're talking about now, who is writing that for you to xp we have an in-house group. >> you think there's enough differentiation and you can tell the difference between an ad from a product. do you think that's true in buzzfeed? >> yeah and i think we are changing it all the time. there's a yellow overlay on the sponsored content. i think part of it is that people recognize that but there are these conventions. if there's a black line around it it is probably an editorial if the font is different. if there's an ad for pepcid, you figure people probably -- the brands want stuff to be clearly branded for sure.

>> hi trade how are you? what do you think is the next big thing after facebook and twitter? what are they not doing that you think could be developed? >> that is a billion dollar idea. certainly there are other social apps that are very popular. people like 12 to 18 and a lot of them which is interesting are peer-to-peer things like what's that where there is no taking it back to the web site. just talking directly to your circle of friends. snapshot is in -- in particular is incredibly popular. spare was curious to know with twitter going public and being publicly traded d. think they will sustain that?

>> i think people will buy the shares. there is obviously a ton of pressure on them to figure out advertising and i think you'll definitely start seeing more ads on your twitter feed. and the basic question is sometimes there are these new innovations that common go and then sometimes there are radio waives have become the basic pipelines for content and become like the plumbing. and you know it feels like facebook and twitter and now basic to the plumbing and there are all sorts of different things that we wind up producing and getting shared can change a lot but the platforms will survive. >> hi then. you wrote back in april after there was a bit of a mess up following the boston bombings. you wrote about how the media, the traditional has a new responsibility in reporting breaking news.

i have it on my phone. there is a shift basically from the media having responsibility of setting and sharing information to having one of guiding an audience that already has been exposed. can you talk about that? >> yeah, i mean basically if you work -- if there's a false allegation or an allegation that you are not sure of. say that the woman who crashed her car into the white house that she was mentally ill. it feels to me like it's so likely that any given reader will have heard that or gore will have seen it somewhere on the web and it makes sense for you to say here is the claim people are making and there is not my children and for it. as opposed to, as opposed to ignoring it. i just think it makes sense to engage things that you want sure about in a way that it used to

make sense. the place i noticed it was the obama campaign in 07. we have the traditional notion that there is this weird allocation that he is secretly muslim and this is like an insane thing and he talks about it. this is very much the traditional political strategy. if you don't engage in crazy stuff it just kind of gets more people repeating it and then at some point they just realize through e-mail or words but also facebook everybody has heard this thing and they engage it frontally and tonight frontally. i think that's just a change in the way information travels. >> i'm curious about the role of traditional media and doing that because you talk about how large organizations will tweet something right away and then they have to sort of set that. is this sort of a new job? >> i think there are reflexes around standards and first of

all tv networks, you just don't type something in less you have confirmed that yourself. it makes a ton of since when you can assume that none of your viewers have heard it so why go spreading questionable information to them and when you should assume that a lot of it was seated on facebook it makes sense to engage it but i don't think there is a silver roll it or anything. >> ben ,-com,-com ma over here. >> oh i'm so sorry. how long were you standing there? >> just a couple of minutes. mike bush and his regarding tracking. i understand a lot of web sites have entire departments analyzing and knowing what people are reading. my first question to you is do you think that people, what you are writing on line and what people want to read, do those

things together? does everything that people reay should be writing and second in your experience as being the are there actual sections or different stories and recordings that you had to kill because people just weren't reading it? >> i've never really seen a ton of the point in writing things that nobody read. i am not sure if there is a section you would kill but certainly the word traffic like content is a little mechanical. it's just for readers and if you can't attract readers to the thing you were writing it probably did something wrong. that said i'm sure there were more people interested and marilyn monroe then jfk and there's always going to be a larger audience for some things than others and there will always be a larger audience for beyoncé than there is for politics.

but a good story whether it's the relatively narrow beach or the broad audience of pop-culture story always gets traffic and you should have sense of what is the possible universe of readers? a story about something that is relatively narrow regarding transgender people's rights, you have to aim to hit the mall with that story to keep it compelling enough. everyone who might possibly read it, reads it. >> hi ben. with your background as a political reporter and i have done coverage with you for cbs radio by you on the political beat. i'm curious about your plans for covering the upcoming congressional election and beyond that the presidential election. >> i think we want to rates a

lot of news and tell entertainment stories i think there is a incremental political scoop that now it's just a tweet. it was something that was never that interesting and basically contained 142 characters that someone's press secretary put which are super fun to do if your covering it campaign and maybe just publishing things on twitter and writing the story is going to absorb more of the small increment which is great because it's a waste of time to write those stories. you feel like you are stretching to fill 400 words but i don't know. basically you want to do really like deep reporting and those are the things. and also we want to do fun and entertaining stuff about these guys. politics has always been both about policy and power but also gossip and personality and if you ever talked any of these politicians, that's what they want to talk about.

it's all kind of rolled up together so we kind of have to do all of that. yeah, so that's all i've got. thanks all you guys for coming and thanks a.j. for -- for putting this whole thing together. [applause] ..

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